Summary
Let Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini hand you real files: a PDF from your file server, or a CSV or report the AI just wrote, as a temporary download link that expires on its own. With AnythingMCP File Share.
The gap
An AI assistant can read a file through a tool, but you often need the file itself: the price list to forward to a customer, the signed contract, the CSV the assistant just put together for you. A chat answer is text; a link is a file.
AnythingMCP closes the gap in two ways:
- Files from your file server. A File Search connector (SFTP, FTP, WebDAV or a mounted folder) can give you any indexed file: small files arrive attached to the answer, larger ones as a temporary download link.
- Files the AI writes. The File Share connector lets the assistant upload a file it created (a CSV, a Markdown report, a JSON export) and returns a link.
Every link expires on its own and the file is deleted from storage, so nothing piles up.
Set it up
- In AnythingMCP, open Settings → File Share and click Add File Share connector. There is one per workspace.
- Add it to the MCP server you use in your AI client (Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, Cursor, Muse).
- To share files from a File Search connector, also switch on the tool
<name>_share_filein that connector's tool list. It is off when you install the connector, so nobody creates links without an administrator deciding so.
Internal and public links
| Internal | Public | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can open it | signed-in members of your AnythingMCP workspace | anyone with the link |
| Use it for | colleagues | customers, suppliers |
| Can be switched off by policy | – | yes (Enterprise) |
The assistant asks which one you want when it is not obvious, and every link can be revoked under Settings → File Share, which lists who created it, for which file, until when and how often it was downloaded.
Prompts to try
- "Find the current Kessler price list and give me a public link valid for 24 hours that I can send to the customer."
- "Make a CSV of all suppliers whose price list is older than a year and give me a download link."
- "Write the meeting summary as Markdown and share it internally for a week."
Limits by plan
| Trial (Cloud) | Starter | Team | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Longest validity | – | 24 hours | 7 days | 90 days, or no expiry for internal links self-hosted |
| Storage of all active links together | – | 100 MB | 2 GB | by contract |
| Largest file | – | 10 MB | 50 MB | by contract |
| Links per day | – | 20 | 200 | by contract |
The free trial does not include links. Program files (.exe, .msi, .bat, .js, .apk and similar) cannot be shared on AnythingMCP Cloud.
Security
- Links are long random tokens; AnythingMCP stores only a hash of them.
- Downloads are served from a separate address as attachments, never displayed as a web page.
- Every link created, opened, revoked or expired is in the audit log.
- Self-hosted, files stay on your own storage volume.
FAQ
Can the assistant open the link itself? It does not need to: it reads the content through the file tools. The link is for you and the people you send it to.
What file types can the assistant create? Anything it can write as text (CSV, Markdown, JSON, HTML, XML, SVG, plain text), and small binary files it sends encoded. For spreadsheets, CSV opens in Excel.
Related
- Search your company file server with AI
- Find prices in supplier price lists with AI
- Search inside Nextcloud and WebDAV files with AI
- Connect an FTP or SFTP server to Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or Muse
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